Note the word "honors" and "honored".....NOT worshipped. That is what "veneration" means. Catholic doctrine is VERY explicit on the subject....."worhsip" (latria) is given only the God...."veneration/honor" (dulia) is given to any worthy individual.
""Hail Mary ...". Mary was a human, is now dead. Same with the Apostles. They are dead, praying to them is praying to the dead."
But they are not dead.....they are living in Heaven, and thus more "alive" than they ever were here on earth. As are the Saints, and anyone else who didn't need a "rest stop" in Purgatory.
"Exclusion of the Apocrypha works was long before Luther and includes St Jerome and Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria. Even Jewish historian Josephus excluded Macabees from the Hebrew Cannon."
Yes, indeed. And mistakenly so. Such exclusion is based on the Hebrews re-defining what constituted the Old Testament...an action taken about one hundred years AFTER Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Unsurprisingly, a big part of that re-definition was to eliminate any texts that might refer to either Jesus or the topic of resurrection. They accomplished this by dropping any books whose original language was Greek rather than Hebrew.
"Matthew 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking."
I repeat.....what exactly is "vain repetition"??? Of course ANY heathen prayer is "in vain". But I fail to see how any CHRISTIAN prayer can be "vain". Even protestants repeat the "Lord's Prayer".
Exactly.
But they are dead and remain so till the Resurrection.
1 Cor 15:51-52
51Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Well that certainly is the Catholic church's view isn't it.
How may "Hail Marys" have been required after the end of a confession? These are certainly vain repetitions.